


When the Faith Grows Old, and Life Turns Cold

by universe



Category: West Wing
Genre: Divorce, F/M, Introspection, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-18
Updated: 2011-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universe/pseuds/universe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They haven't spoken in seven years.</i> It's become a well-rehearsed routine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Faith Grows Old, and Life Turns Cold

They haven’t spoken in seven years.

 

+-+-+

Once a year (not on his birthday, not on Christmas, not on New Year’s Eve—she has consciously chosen an arbitrary day so he won’t be expecting it), she picks up the phone, starts dialling his number, but hangs up before she even gets to the last digit. It’s become a well-rehearsed routine.

About a week later, she starts writing him a letter. It begins the same every year, _Toby, I mi—_ , and it’s there that she stops. Doesn’t allow herself to go further (except for once, when her brain was too quick, _there’s so much I need to tell you, should have told you years ago…_ ), and crumples the paper until all she feels are its small indentations in her skin.

 

+-+-+

Marriages and deaths, jobs and rules and different directions. Betrayal, loneliness. Another string of words that don’t mean a thing to her.

She tries to remember a time when her life was simple. (When being around _him_ was simple. When being _without_ him was.) Sometimes, all the little moments she’s been through, all the days and weeks and months and years, they blend into something bigger, a meaningless blur, and she can’t help but wonder what they all add up to. Here she is, now, the epitome of a cliché; the woman who got everything she wanted and more, and still isn’t satisfied.

 

+-+-+

He lives in New York now, miles and miles away. (It could just as well be only a few blocks; they would still manage to avoid running into each other.)

 

+-+-+

Danny has moved on, she thinks. Hopes. He had waited for her for years, and still welcomed her back with open arms, open smiles, an open heart, when she deserved none of it.

Their marriage could have worked, would have worked, if—

Danny has moved on, she thinks. Hopes.

 

+-+-+

It’s just another day, nothing out of the ordinary happens, and yet.

There’s this ache inside her, this yearning for something (someone) somewhere else, so she packs a bag; her favourite pairs of jeans and a couple of soft, worn shirts that remind her of happier times. Australia, maybe. Or Mauritius? The Bahamas. Anywhere, as long as it’s warm and summery.

There’s a bottle of sunscreen sitting in her bathroom, for emergencies.

She doesn’t take it.

 

+-+-+

Part of her still hates him for giving up, giving in. For not fighting when he should have. (She wouldn’t have refused him. Wouldn’t have been able to.) But he made his choice, they all did. She can’t blame him for that, she thinks (whenever she thinks about this objectively, whenever she detaches, which… doesn’t happen often enough).

She’s known him longer than anyone else in her life now, ever since her father died. She knew him before she met Sam, before she shook Josh’s hand hello, before she first kissed Danny, _before_.

It’s funny, she thinks, how quickly you can go from not knowing each other at all to being best friends, to being _more_ than that, to being less than before, or maybe nothing at all.

If she could do it all again, if given the choice of erasing the past decade and a half, she would—

The first time he smiled at her. The first time they danced. The last time they did. The quiet evenings spent in either of their offices, discussing schedules and plans and other things that didn’t really matter... He hurt her, but she hurt him right back, and as long as there’s some kind of balance, maybe they can be okay.

She wouldn’t change a thing.

 

+-+-+

The flight is shorter than expected, or maybe she falls asleep.

The city feels smaller, somehow, her perception of things askew, no longer aligned with reality. In the end, it doesn’t matter. She knows his address, gives it to the taxi driver without a moment’s hesitation. The door looks exactly the way she thought it would, the layout of the lobby familiar, even though she’s never been here. She rings the doorbell, and it’s easier than what her mind had made her believe it would be.

 

+-+-+

Seven years are a damn long time. She has lost and won, like everybody else she knows. Some have lost more than others, and some have gained more than she’ll ever dream of. Everyone but _him_. Sure, she’s checked up on him, made sure he was still alive and breathing, she had her ways, even without having to ever speak to him in all these years.

Her hair is darker now, and longer. (If it weren’t such a bad idea, she would wonder whether he’d like it or not.) She imagines what’s left of his own hair is littered with grey streaks.

She keeps in touch with some people, with Sam and Josh and Donna, mostly, and the Bartlets, of course. But since she went her separate way, there’s not much holding them together anymore except for the memory of how things used to be.

And seven years are a damn long time, even for a memory.

 

+-+-+

He opens the door, and she falls into him, clinging to him like he’s the only real thing left in this world. And in a way, he is. Always has been; since the day they all split up and scattered, since the day she first screwed up, since the day she fell into her pool right in front of him.

When he asks if she’s alright, his voice has a shocked edge to it, something she knows ( _knew_ ) happens ( _happened_ ) rarely. (She hopes to God he hasn’t changed as much as she has.)

 

+-+-+

They’re perched on his couch, two cups of coffee on the table in front of them, untouched. There’s a drop slowly running down the side of one of them, and she can’t tear her eyes away, not until it hits the (annoyingly cheerful) yellow coaster the mug is sitting on.

He tells her how he’s been, what he’s been up to; a try to ease her into a conversation, to get her to _just talk to him_. It should mean something, and in a weird, messed up way, it _does_. But they’re hardly the type to just sit and talk about trivialities.

“I missed you.”

It’s out of her mouth before she can taste the words on her tongue, and for the first time in years, she feels _alive_ , like a burden has been lifted off her shoulders. Like she’s a step closer to home.

He doesn’t reply, but it’s not important. The way his arms wrap around her (tightly, until she almost can’t breathe) tells her all she needs to know, and more.

For all the finesse they have with words, they’ve always fared better without them when it mattered.

 

+-+-+

One afternoon, he drags her outside to show her his favourite places, ignoring her protests that it’s going to rain. They buy ice cream cones, sit down on a bench, and eat in silence until none of it is left but a streak of lemon on her lower lip that he wipes away with his thumb.

“I’m divorced,” she says.

“Me too.”

It’s stupid, and she shouldn’t laugh, but she _does_ , and she feels _good_. She _feels_. Which is more than she’s been able to say for herself in a long time.

She looks up into the sky, feels herself tilt and fall, but she doesn’t hit the ground. Instead, when she looks back to him, the world looks different. It looks right.

The wind picks up, and the first drops of rain splash on the sidewalk.

 

+-+-+

On a stormy evening in New York City, Toby’s hand wraps around hers, and it’s enough.


End file.
